714

What TV shows are absolutely worth watching? (discuss.online)

submitted 2 days ago by DashboTreeFrog@discuss.online to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

506 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I haven't been watching much in terms of actual shows for a good while, then while listening to a podcast a host casually mentioned they had rewatched Chernobyl, how it still holds up, that there's a reason it got as much acclaim as it did, etc. So I thought I'd give it a go and wow, loved it (still one episode left to watch).

Had me thinking, what else have I missed out on? What are some "absolute cinema" TV shows that still hold up and and are considered must watch?

top 50 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[-] SupremeJerk9999@lemmy.world 4 points 6 hours ago

TV Shows

Must Watch

Breaking Bad
Better Call Saul
Chernobyl
Peaky Blinders
Dinosaurs

Highly Rated (With Caveats)

The Wire: A timeless masterpiece, but the extremely slow pace requires pushing through the first season.
Band of Brothers: Excellent, but historically did Captain Sobel dirty—he wasn't like that.
Primal: Extremely good, but the story ends at Season 2. Season 3 is an unnecessary overextension.

Good Shows (Minor Caveats)

Narcos: Enjoyable until Escobar (the star) is captured, then it loses its appeal.
Pablo Escobar, The Drug Lord (El Patrón del Mal): Less dramatic but more accurate and highly enjoyable than Narcos.
Dune: Prophecy & House of the Dragon: Good overall, but heavily woke. They take too many liberties and squander their superior source materials.

Great for Uniqueness, Story, or Style (Major Caveats)

Game of Thrones (Seasons 1-4): The absolute best TV ever made. It doesn't top Breaking Bad only because the later seasons are absolute garbage.
The Sopranos: Great episodic show, but slow. The overarching story wasn't the main focus; six seasons could have been condensed into three.

Shows That Don't Live Up to Their Name

Dark: Starts great, but convoluted rules in Season 2 and Deus ex machina plot devices in Season 3 ruin it.
Shōgun (2024): Unremarkable. Unfaithful to the source material due to wokeness, specifically erasing Blackthorne's protagonism because he's white.
The Expanse: A convoluted, messy dumpster fire.
Westworld: A convoluted, messy dumpster fire.
Euphoria: Hot Gen Z garbage.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: Pure hype with no justification to exist. Spends 7 episodes on Dunk, an absolute loser and terrible fighter.

Anime

Must Watch

Frieren: Beyond Journey's End (Sousou no Frieren): A beautiful, clean, family-safe show with no fan service. The appeal is the whole package.

Good Shows (Minor Caveats)

Noragami: Beautiful, but not a masterpiece; sequels dip in quality.
Psycho-Pass: Genuinely good Minority Report-style premise. Season 1 is amazing.
Mob Psycho 100: Good comedy, but relies on repetitive tropes after Season 2.
One Punch Man: Extremely funny great premise, but the quality drop after Season 1 shouldn't have happened.
Dragon Ball / Dragon Ball Z: Legendary but too long (Kai is the shorter alternative).

Great for Uniqueness, Story, or Style (Major Caveats)

Neon Genesis Evangelion: Very unique. The writer projected his mental issues onto a weird cast, the protagonist is a loser, and it has no proper ending.
Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood: Good, but overhyped. Suffers from forced humor, quality drops near the end, and a predictable "happily ever after."
Fullmetal Alchemist (2003): Much darker, serious, and extremely good, but the animation is garbage.
Tokyo Ghoul: Only good until Season 2 before major quality dips.

Shows That Don't Live Up to Their Name

Death Note: The premise is so unbelievable it falls apart and becomes obnoxious in just a few episodes.

[-] jpreston2005@lemmy.world 3 points 4 hours ago

wokeness,

I thought you had some interesting insights until I saw you list "wokeness" as a caveat.

Then I saw how you rated one of the greatest Sci-Fi shows of all time, The Expanse, and knew I could discard everything you said.

[-] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 1 points 4 hours ago

wokeness

i assume he dint mean wokeness in the conservative sense, but adding "inclusive" characthers that diverges from the plot , alot of shows are like this.

[-] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 1 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

SEASON 6 of expanse was wierd, and i dint like the "stargate-esque ending.

sandman, why gender swap lucifer, it has always been male, even in other lore. as far as angels go when they posses other humans, they can raceswap/genderswap all theyw ant. its not faithful to source material, there are several others. it would be wierd to do it to Mazikeen to.

neon genesis, is all over the place. rebuild bring some of closure. wish they made the angels have better fights though.

nobody mentioned invincible: season 1 was great, but season 2 and on, has been subpar due to degrading animation of the show. you dont have to hire every FAMOUS celebrity to VA the show, which likely took all the budget of the show. there are VAs for a reason. some of the VA do not match the characters they are playing at all.

[-] pleiades@lemmy.ml 1 points 5 hours ago

I strongly disagree with these takes on Death Note, FMAB, and Evangelion, especially considering the fact that the endings of all three were great (counting EoE as the ending for Evangelion, since that was basically its purpose.) What do you mean the premise of Death Note is unbelievable? It's not trying to be realistic whatsoever; it's like if I said Harry Potter has an unbelievable premise because magic isn't real. Seasons 5 and 6 of GoT are great too, the last couple episodes of 6 are the best in the show imo (I said this in another comment)

[-] Grabthar@lemmy.world 2 points 5 hours ago

Over 600 comments, and among the many recurring mentions of the greatest shows in television history, I didn't see The Venture Bros. mentioned at all. It is quite possibly the best-written show of all time.

[-] 418_im_a_teapot@sh.itjust.works 6 points 9 hours ago

The Great (Hulu) is an all time favorite of mine and almost nobody talks about it.

[-] lechekaflan@lemmy.world 5 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

Andor. Pluribus. 3 Body Problem. Queen's Gambit. Babylon Berlin. Alice in Borderland. Shogun (the 2024 series). The Expanse. First two seasons of For All Mankind.

[-] Snowwdropp@lemmy.zip 8 points 10 hours ago

Shogun and Andor

[-] teuniac_@lemmy.world 6 points 10 hours ago

Curb Your Enthusiasm. Pretty pretty good

[-] homik@slrpnk.net 8 points 11 hours ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexx

It's old-ish and maybe not the greatest work of art on screen, but I love that it had a very unique world and characters and humour and it keeps on developing and changing throughout.

It's been too long. I really kind of want to watch it again.

[-] emeralddawn45@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 11 hours ago

This was a wild show. I found out about it like a year ago and binged the whole thing, and I couldn't understand how I hadn't heard about it sooner, having watched basically every decent sci-fi ever made. It's definitely like a fever trip at times but it's so creative and unique that it's absolutely worth watching (and rewatching)

[-] Taleya@aussie.zone 3 points 10 hours ago

It's so insane Tim Curry as an unhinged AI comes off as the straight man. I fucking love it.

[-] Bluefalcon@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 8 hours ago

Still Game. YT has every epi. Old Scottish guys dealing with how life has changed around them. Comedy, M rating, feels like a Blazing Saddles fan

[-] UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml 1 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

Person of Interest.

Keep in mind the Snowden revelations did not occur till near the final seasons of the show.

[-] calebwill@lemmy.zip 1 points 7 hours ago

Connections and The Day the Universe Changed by James Burke.
The Prisoner by Patrick McGoohan
Babylon 5 and Jeremiah by J. Michael Straczynski

[-] tigermountain@lemmy.world 4 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

My wife and I have been binging a show called The Last Ship. Supposedly came out a number of years ago. It's a Michael Bay production and kind of a post apocalyptic scenario but well worth a watch.

And of course there's Always Sunny.

[-] brownsugga@lemmy.world 1 points 7 hours ago

Game of thrones was great for the first like 3 or 4 seasons

Hannibal

Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood

Toast of London

Parade (the hbo one about aristocracy and stuff, very melancholy and beautiful)

[-] pleiades@lemmy.ml 1 points 5 hours ago

Seasons 5 and 6 of GoT are great too, the last couple episodes of 6 are the best in the show imo

[-] dev_null@lemmy.ml 1 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

As someone who hasn't watched GoT, I was put off from watching it because I heard how bad the last season (or two?) was. I do hear the first seasons are good, but is it worth watching if I have to either stop mid-way and cliffhanger myself or watch the bad seasons? Both seem like crappy options.

[-] Aiz@reddthat.com 2 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

If you like the fantasy genre Shadow and Bone is great.

[-] TIEPilot@lemmy.world 3 points 10 hours ago

For an older one I would go with "Jericho"

[-] Vespair@lemmy.zip 8 points 13 hours ago

It feels a bit dated, but Veronica Mars is still an excellent and somehow still underrated show.

I also think Scrubs and Community are both peak television that stand up to countless rewatches.

[-] m3t00@lemmy.world 1 points 8 hours ago

pbs on an antenna. rest is unwatchable crap usually.

[-] AlteredEgo@lemmy.ml 4 points 11 hours ago

Chernobyl is good show but one thing it got very wrong is the idea that the molten down reactor could somehow explode again for some gigantic fireball larger than the Tsar Bomba.

It increases fear of nuclear power unreasonably. Also much much less people died or suffered from nuclear power including Chernobyl compared to fossil fuels. Even solar power causes more deaths from roofing accidents. We now know at least some of the nuclear hysteria is / was funded by fossil fuel interests.

[-] Stitch0815@feddit.org 3 points 11 hours ago

Absolutly noone asked tho

[-] dev_null@lemmy.ml 2 points 6 hours ago

I asked. Their comment contributed to the post, yours didn't.

[-] Aiz@reddthat.com 1 points 8 hours ago

Alias Grace, the Smile movies (1,2), Haunting of hill house,

[-] itsgroundhogdayagain@lemmy.ml 4 points 12 hours ago

Deadwood Invincible Mr. Robot

[-] edgyspazkid@lemmy.wtf 23 points 19 hours ago

This is PEAK of my last year.

[-] Cardigans@lemmy.zip 1 points 9 hours ago

Yo, I loved Scavenger’s Reign, I’ll have to check this out.

[-] kittenspronkles@lemmy.ml 1 points 8 hours ago

Scavengers Reign was great but this one has a much tighter plot/story

load more comments (1 replies)

[-] ramenshaman@lemmy.world 4 points 14 hours ago

Lots of great suggestions, I'm surprised nobody's said Shogun. Season 1 came out in 2024, they just started working on season 2.

[-] tostos@lemmy.world 12 points 18 hours ago

Black Books

load more comments (2 replies)

load more comments

this post was submitted on 27 Jun 2026

714 points (100.0% liked)

Ask Lemmy

40171 readers

1121 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions

Rules: (interactive)

1) Be nice and; have fun

Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, toxicity and dog-whistling are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them

2) All posts must end with a '?'

This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?

3) No spam

Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.

4) NSFW is okay, within reason

Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].

5) This is not a support community.

It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.

6) No US Politics.

Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !askusa@discuss.online

7) No Hit-and-Run questions.

Please don't delete your post for no apparent reason. If you plan on deleting a question later, say so in the post, or if you feel that you have a good reason to remove it, message a mod beforehand. It's not fair to the ones who took their time to answer, and it's not in the spirit of the community.

Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.